Peter Dawkins (musician) - 1980s, Illness and Onwards

1980s, Illness and Onwards

While working as A&R Manager at CBS in 1980, Dawkins discovered the band Matt Finish and left CBS to start his first label, The Giant Recording Label, and subsequently Giant released Matt Finish's enduring cult classics Short Note and Fade Away. Giant later signed Melbourne band Little Heroes.

Dawkins produced Australian Crawl's successful LP Sirocco, which went to #1 in Australia and earned four platinum records. He went on to be General Manager of EMI Australia in the mid-1980s.

In 1986 he was appointed General Manager of J. Albert & Son music publishers, running their London office. The death of CEO Ted Albert precipitated Dawkins' return to Australia and another change of employment.

In 1990 he opened a recording studio in Balmain, Sydney - Giant Studios, and started his second label (through BMG) called Nova. The earlier Giant name was bought by Irving Azoff, who was starting a label in the United States with the same name.

The development of Parkinson's disease meant that he had to gradually cease work over the next few years, with the shut-down of the studio in the mid-90s.

In 2005 he was able to afford further medical treatment, deep brain stimulation, after extensive fund-raising by his friends in the music industry.

As part of this effort, in 2006, Sony/BMG issued a compilation album of Dawkins' recordings - For Pete's Sake, which included the Matt Finish hit Short Note and a new song "Understand", written by Dawkins' son Paul and the late Matt Moffitt, sung by the Little River Band's Glenn Shorrock. It was produced at Sony Studios in Sydney and mixed by noted engineer Richard Lush. The CD includes liner notes by historian Glenn A. Baker.